What's New (and Coming Soon) in Downtown Birmingham This Fall

The Moosejaw corner at Maple and Bates is getting a new name. So are Detroit Guitar's old storefront, the longtime home of Cristions Fine Linens & Downs, and the Barbara Boz space on East Maple. Most of the businesses coming downtown this season started in Michigan, and several are run by people who grew up a few miles from Old Woodward. Here is who is moving in, where, and why so many of them are really coming home.

New names at familiar addresses

Most of downtown's new tenants are filling storefronts residents have walked past for years. Here is where each one stood in mid-October, based on the latest local reporting and the businesses' own pages.

Opening dates move, especially for retail in the run-up to the holidays. The storefronts themselves are the best guide to which ones have actually opened.

The founders grew up down the road

The table becomes more interesting once you look at who is behind each name.

Bev's Bagels belongs to chef-owner Max Sussman, a Huntington Woods native and James Beard Award semifinalist. He built his name in New York, started Bev's as a pop-up out of his home in 2023, and opened a shop in Detroit's Core City before choosing Hamilton Row for his second location. In Downtown Publications, Sussman described the move as personal: "When I was growing up, I'd go there with my grandparents for lunch all the time."

Greyson Clothiers was founded in 2015 by Charlie Schaefer, a Bloomfield native and Detroit Country Day graduate who spent 13 years designing at Ralph Lauren, according to Downtown Publications. The golf and lifestyle brand has stores in Southampton, Charleston, Seoul and elsewhere, plus a Detroit flagship in the Wright & Kay building on Woodward. The Old Woodward store will be its 12th location and its fourth in Michigan.

Shoppe Cozette is owned by Birmingham resident Tara Stover. In the 1970s her parents ran Scarborough Square, a chain of clothing stores around metro Detroit. Stover and her father opened a Scarborough Square boutique in downtown Rochester in 2017. After that store closed during the pandemic, she moved online, launched Shoppe Cozette, and built a styling clientele in Birmingham that eventually justified a storefront. She and her husband, architect Kevin Stover, redesigned the former Barbara Boz space. The racks carry Chan Luu, Skall Studio, Dôen and Éterne, along with home décor, vintage pieces and clean beauty products, and the shop is open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

e Fiori is from chef and restaurateur Luciano DelSignore, the name behind Bigalora Wood Fired Cucina, Casa Peroni and Southfield's Bacco, which closed in 2024 after 22 years, as Hour Detroit recapped. The name means "and flowers" in Italian. The Detroit Free Press reported that the pairing of restaurant and floral shop was billed as the first of its kind in Michigan. Hour Detroit describes a menu built on seafood, pastas and a long wine list.

So four of this fall's openings are led by people from Huntington Woods, Bloomfield, Birmingham and the surrounding metro area. These businesses are owned by people who grew up or settled nearby.

The brands that waited for the right spot

A second group took a different route. These companies spent years deciding whether downtown Birmingham was the right place to open.

Cherry Republic has been around since 1989, when Bob Sutherland sold T-shirts out of his car in northern Michigan. Today it runs eight stores, in Glen Arbor, Traverse City, Ann Arbor, Holland, Frankenmuth, Charlevoix, Mackinaw City and Lansing. The Birmingham store will be its first in metro Detroit. Jason Homa, the company's VP of sales and service, told MLive that it had "been looking in the Detroit area for more than a decade." He also said Birmingham will be one of the chain's smaller stores, because he expects shoppers to come in pairs or groups of four, while the Traverse City store sees vacationing families of 10. As of mid-October, Cherry Republic's Birmingham page still promised a fall 2026 opening.

J.Jill is a return of sorts. The national women's retailer had a store at Somerset Collection for years before closing it in fall 2023, according to Downtown Publications. Its next local store is going into the former Moosejaw space at the corner of West Maple and North Bates, where interior work was underway at the end of September.

PopUp Bagels is the true newcomer to the state. Founded by Adam Goldberg in Westport, Connecticut, in 2020, the chain runs 49 stores in 18 states, and Birmingham will host its first in Michigan. Crain's Detroit Business placed the 34400 Woodward address just outside downtown.

Two very different bagel mornings

The two bagel shops show how differently the hometown chef and the expanding chain approach the same breakfast.

• Bev's Bagels, 283 Hamilton Row. Organic sourdough bagels, chef-made schmears and bagel sandwiches. The Birmingham shop adds items you won't find at the Detroit location, including open-faced sandwiches with Michigan heirloom tomatoes, a chopped salad aimed at the lunch crowd, plain and everything gluten-free bagels, and weekday pastries. Planned hours are 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., seven days a week, and the shop will lean into catering for office lunches, holidays and family celebrations.
• PopUp Bagels, 34400 Woodward Ave. Hot whole bagels you tear open and dip into flavored schmears or butters, with no premade sandwiches. The storefront signs went up in the former T-Mobile space in late summer.

When it opens, Bev's will offer a sit-down lunch in the middle of downtown. PopUp is closer to a grab-and-go stop along Woodward. Bev's had targeted September for Hamilton Row, so look for the storefront before you plan a morning around it.

Downtown has seen this pattern before

Three shops are celebrating 10 years downtown this season, and one of them got started the same way.

Voila Boutique opened in Grosse Pointe in 2011. Sisters Pascale Forster and Carole Viadero noticed that many of their customers were driving over from Birmingham, so in 2016 they opened a second store at 395 Hamilton Row. Sundance Shoes, owned by Katie Ray Johnston, and the Birmingham store of Gazelle Sports, which opened in 2016, are also marking their tenth anniversaries.

Voila's story matches this fall's openings closely. The sisters followed their Birmingham customers home. Stover did much the same, turning her online and styling clientele into a store on East Maple. Cherry Republic spent a decade looking before it settled on West Maple.

What's next on Woodward

The next project looks past the holidays. InvestWise Financial, a wealth management firm, plans a three-story, roughly 9,300-square-foot headquarters at 36977 Woodward Avenue, on the long-vacant corner at Woodward and Quarton. Downtown Publications reports it is expected to open in early 2027. Downtown Publications calls the site a highly visible corner.

For now, there is enough to fill a fall Saturday downtown. Start with lunch at e Fiori on Willits, which serves weekdays from 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., or reserve a weekend dinner. Then walk Maple past the new tenants in the Barbara Boz, Detroit Guitar and Moosejaw spaces.

I have watched many of these storefronts change hands, and it is especially welcome when the new name comes from a family with roots around here. If you own a downtown building or a nearby home and want to talk about how the new openings figure into your plans, or you just want to swap notes on which spots have opened, Anna Rea is happy to hear from you. Let's Connect.